Permanent Link:

Preferred citation

Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD,
dated October 12, 1881.,
Original located at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C.,
RU7002.,
http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/item/gpmsfb811012 (accessed August 02, 2015)

Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD,
dated October 12, 1881.

Transcribed by
:

TEI mark-up by
:
James P. Tranowski and

Published by: University of Vermont. All rights reserved.

Publication Information

[Only signature is in Marsh's hand]Rome, Oct. 12th 1881.

Prof.
Spencer F. Baird,c c

Dear Baird

The excessive heat and drought of last summer drove every body, the government
included, away from Rome &, though the sanitary condition of the city has
improved in proportion as the "Popality" has lost in power, public distrust still
continues, and Rome is almost deserted. For the first time in twenty years I have
spent my vacation, not in the Alps, but in the Champagne country of Tuscany, and I
have passed my time in giving a final revision to my works, even including Man & Nature, of the defects of which I am, I will not say as sensible as you can be, but
still sufficiently so to be willing to devote a few hours of my remaining strength
to making it, not good indeed, but less bad than it now is. I have this to say in
its defence, that, though it has taught little, it has accomplished its end, which
was to draw the attention of better prepared observers to several of the questions
discussed in it.

I now wish to make available, if possible, some of my -------------------------------- Page -------------------------------- early observations on
facts of interest. The Vermont rivers, White River & Water Queechee, are
nearly parallel in their general courses which are about ten miles distant from each
other. I had in my boyhood a good fishhook acquaintance with the piscatory
population of both, the species being most numerous in White River, whose bed lies
some hundreds of feet lower than that of the Water Queechee, & is
consequently less liable to severe frosts. The Connecticut River salmon in primitive
times entered the mouths of both rivers, but their ascent was checked at Hartford on
the Water Queechee by a natural dam of from 70 to 80 feet of nearly perpendicular
height. But a single salmon was ever taken above this dam--one,
however, weighing six pounds, was caught above this fall about the close of the last
century. Although it happened before my birth, this rare and important event, was a
frequent subject of conversation afterwards among the elder brethren of the angle of
whom I, like other truant boys, was a reverent follower. Before this "fish story"
was verklungen, as the Germans say, another marvel was announced which threw Jonas's Whale
into the shade. One of the genus boys, about 1810, was seen marching into
town, dragging by a fish-line an eel weighing six or seven pounds which he
had caught in the Water Queechee at a point where it flowed through my father's
grounds, and of course I, as one of the heirs of the lord of the manor, -------------------------------- Page -------------------------------- am
responsible for the truth of the story-and besides, I knew the boy well myself, so
one historical fact may be considered as fairly established. So much for Queechee
River. In the comet-year of 1814, I was sent to school at Royalton, on
White River, and I proceeded at once to investigate the truth of the boys' report
that Royalton was in a different icthyological province from that of Woodstock. The
very first day I caught several specimens of a fish unknown in the Water Queechee
which the boys called dais, and I also secured several fresh-water clams, a
bivalve equally unknown to my native waters. I was taken to a millpond in which, as
I was credibly assured by a boy, eels were taken. This last surprising fact
was accounted for, by the ancient fisherman of the region, from the circumstance
that the banks of the White River were more generally cleared of woods than were
those of the Water Queechee, it being a law of nature as those hoary sages affirmed,
that eels were never found in forest-streams, but only in waters whose shores were
cleared & brought under cultivation. How far are these observations in
accordance with those of others, and do they suggest any food for thought to your
gaping soul?

'Seeing' as Tom Fuller says, 'I have this much waste paper,' I will cover it with
another report. About the same period to which I have referred above, the small
millpond in -------------------------------- Page -------------------------------- the village of Woodstock was drawn off to repair a leaky dam, and
in the mud at the bottom of the pond were found great numbers of
swallows clinging with their bills to the branches of the willows which
fringed the pond This I did not see myself, but I heard it testified to a by a great
number of the people of the village. You are therefore at liberty to believe or
disbelieve, though as to the rest of this letter it is a matter of faith which you
are to swallow unquestioningly whether you believe or not.